I spoke to the Pelletsales.com management today

[webbie]

Had a chat today with one of the principals (Jon) of Pelletsales.com.

As I mentioned before, they are not a back-of-the-store operation, an expanded stove dealer, garden center, etc.

They are a well capitalized business with dozens of employees who have invested a LOT of resources, time and money and intend to become the largest broker of pellets in the USA...in fact they probably already are. I'm not saying this as an advertisement, just trying to communicate that they know what they are talking about in this market.

The good news. They have pellets.
The bad news - they see the supply of pellets continuing to be tight and the price continuing to be high - in the Northeast. Demand has outstripped supply, which means pellets must be hauled in from as far away as British Columbia (by train) and then transferred and hauled a few more times before getting to the end user. Given the higher fuel costs, you can imagine why the prices have skyrocketed.

I inquired as to why pellets were less money in the midwest and ohio - and even W. Pennsylvania. Jon had not heard this, as he see a lot of demand coming from there....for pellets at much higher prices than I have heard about. We guessed that the lower priced pellets are spotty - the result of smaller mills and dealers who made deals for supply before the craziness hit. In other words, if you see something good - grab it. It might not happen again soon!

Pelletsales.com sees supply increasing as the season winds down. They seem to think that a big problem this year was NOT the lack of plants (although that figures in), but rather the fact that the existing plants did not build up big inventories in the months before the "crisis" hit - in other words, given the poor year for pellet appliances last year, the mills were not taking any chances. By the time the boom hit, it was too late to build up stock - everything they make is flying out the door.

Even with lower oil prices they do not expect pellet availability to increase soon - because too many pellet appliances are being built and delivered in the months ahead. Sure, these new owners may not burn as many (if oil is cheap), but most will buy at least 2 tons of fuel along with their appliances.

Anyway, that's a quick summary of the state of the market in New England!

 

[MCPO]

Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Sting]

Thank-you for the in site!

 

[Czech]

Just picked up a bunch of pelletized horse food for free, there are options for those that have stoves that burn anything and are willing to do a little more maint. You in Stings? PM me if so. Burn it if you got it! That last saying was for Craig, just read the 60's quote thread in the Ash. Hope PS makes it by the way, tough market. I have never pre-bought for all the years I've been burning, every season seems to work out because there always seems to be excess in the winter here. Never paid more than $200/ton, and the horse/dog/gerbil food is free. Make some yellow page phone calls folks, amazing what most stoves will burn with a little tweaking and cleaning.

 

[tinkabranc]

Thanks for the insite Craig!

 

[escobarmj]

Thanks for the inside scoop. I guess if oil prices keep dropping then pellet demand will soften and prices will eventually drop.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

This is my supply and I thought I would have a lot more in stock than I do. My price is currently $250 a ton for stove customers and $275 a ton for non-stove customers. I wish I could keep the same pricing for everyone but customers come first.
Eric

 

[slls]

I don't know about all the late stoves being delivered and wanting pellets, I had my pellets 4 months before my delayed stove arrived.

 

[MainePellethead]

This is my supply and I thought I would have a lot more in stock than I do. My price is currently $250 a ton for stove customers and $275 a ton for non-stove customers. I wish I could keep the same pricing for everyone but customers come first.
Eric

At least your selling to non customers.....a Harmon Dealer near me will not sell at all to people that didnt buy a stove from him lol.....silly man.

 

[johnnywarm]

This is my supply and I thought I would have a lot more in stock than I do. My price is currently $250 a ton for stove customers and $275 a ton for non-stove customers. I wish I could keep the same pricing for everyone but customers come first.
Eric

At least your selling to non customers.....a Harmon Dealer near me will not sell at all to people that didnt buy a stove from him lol.....silly man.

This is the reason i went wood this year.

 

[Jester]

Maine Pellethead, you must be talking about Home and Hearth. They didnt even want to give me a price on the log set for my stove because I bought it used (even though we've bought three airtight woodstoves from them over the years)

I got a very differernt story from pelletsales.com on Friday. I called them as between the time I got and reserved a quote on cleanfire's and ordered (less than 8 hrs at work) they sold out of them. I was inititally getting the story "they'll be back in stock this week". Now I see the LG granules in my area have been on a two week status for about two weeks. I called them to see what that meant, and they told me they've been out for about a month of the LG granules (this conversation was last Friday). They had no idea when they would be getting anything in stock in my area.
The ringer is when the LG granules were in and I tried to order, I got a server timed out error, and a page of code. I gave up after several attempts and called to order some big heat from a local garden center (they promised them to me this past thursday, Yeah still waiting there too)
I got an email from them, apparantly the order went through ( one for each time I hit back on the browser and resubmitted) telling me if they didnt get a check they wont hold the price. When I emailed back and asked for a projected delivery date , and now that Im checking I never heard back.

Oh yeah, and they cancelled customer pickup. Thier complaints about this were legit, but could have been fixed rather than eliminating the option. Ive got trucks, no need to pay them to deliver.
They may aim to be the biggest supplier, but so far Im not impressed with them.

 

[MainePellethead]

Maine Pellethead, you must be talking about Home and Hearth. They didnt even want to give me a price on the log set for my stove because I bought it used (even though we've bought three airtight woodstoves from them over the years)

Yeah on Rte. 4 in Sanford....Junior's place. I'm as impressed with him as I am with Pellet Sales . com's delivery prices......wont buy from either one. lol.

 

[johnnywarm]

Maine Pellethead, you must be talking about Home and Hearth. They didnt even want to give me a price on the log set for my stove because I bought it used (even though we've bought three airtight woodstoves from them over the years)

I got a very differernt story from pelletsales.com on Friday. I called them as between the time I got and reserved a quote on cleanfire's and ordered (less than 8 hrs at work) they sold out of them. I was inititally getting the story "they'll be back in stock this week". Now I see the LG granules in my area have been on a two week status for about two weeks. I called them to see what that meant, and they told me they've been out for about a month of the LG granules (this conversation was last Friday). They had no idea when they would be getting anything in stock in my area.
The ringer is when the LG granules were in and I tried to order, I got a server timed out error, and a page of code. I gave up after several attempts and called to order some big heat from a local garden center (they promised them to me this past thursday, Yeah still waiting there too)
I got an email from them, apparantly the order went through ( one for each time I hit back on the browser and resubmitted) telling me if they didnt get a check they wont hold the price. When I emailed back and asked for a projected delivery date , and now that Im checking I never heard back.

Oh yeah, and they cancelled customer pickup. Thier complaints about this were legit, but could have been fixed rather than eliminating the option. Ive got trucks, no need to pay them to deliver.
They may aim to be the biggest supplier, but so far Im not impressed with them.

Second reason for going wood

 

[Jester]

Came from wood. Its over 400 a cord here. We used to get 10 every two years in log length and cut and split ourselves. They stopped selling it in log length. Much messier, more work. I loved it before the industry got killed by lack of availability for reasonable wood. ( sound familiar)

 

[Jester]

This is my supply and I thought I would have a lot more in stock than I do. My price is currently $250 a ton for stove customers and $275 a ton for non-stove customers. I wish I could keep the same pricing for everyone but customers come first.
Eric

Eric
Does that $275 a ton cover delivery?


TO Newburyport?
lol

 

[johnnywarm]

Came from wood. Its over 400 a cord here. We used to get 10 every two years in log length and cut and split ourselves. They stopped selling it in log length. Much messier, more work. I loved it before the industry got killed by lack of availability for reasonable wood. ( sound familiar)

100 bucks a cord log length here.it is more work but my stove works without electricity and i dont need to deal with a dealer.

there's alot more people selling wood then a coupe of company's that have pellets for 300 plus a ton :down:

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Sorry we stopped delivery this year. come on out and load up the Ford Focus. Every house needs a pick up truck.......

Eric

 

[escobarmj]

This is my supply and I thought I would have a lot more in stock than I do. My price is currently $250 a ton for stove customers and $275 a ton for non-stove customers. I wish I could keep the same pricing for everyone but customers come first.
Eric

You should open a store in RI.....I haven't seen a ton of pellets going for under $300 in a while.

 

[kinsmanstoves]

Hey Mike J.

I would love to open more stores. From what I have heard about Hearth stores on the east coast on this board, I think NOT. I like n/e Ohio. There are a lot of nice homes for sale in this area and there are jobs for people who wanna work.

Eric

 

[cac4]

Jester, I'm just down the road from you, in Rowley. I don't know who you talked to at H&H;, but they're selling pellets to non-stove customers. They just aren't delivering, and they're limiting purchases to 1 ton per month. I got a half-ton of dry creeks from them a few weeks ago. been waitin' and watchin', and hemming and hawing, with the market sitch around here. anyway, while I'd like to get a single big delivery for the bulk of my fuel needs, I figure until something reasonable and available shows up, I'll just stockpile what I can get from HH. So I was out doing errands yesterday, and I figured I'd stop by up there to see what they had...picked up another half-ton (thats all I can carry in my half-ton truck). They had NEWP "canadian", which is a softwood from BC, I guess. The place was buzzing with people picking up pellets.
on the way back, I went into HD in Seabrook for other stuff, and noticed an open pallet of hardwood pellets on the floor w/ the stoves, so I went out to the garden center to see if there were any more...there was a long row of pallets out there, but most had been claimed. At the end of the row were a few that had no names on 'em...so I was able to score 2 tons. ($299/ton). They're "pike pellets", 100% hardwood from IL. haven't looked them up yet, but I hope they don't suck. I figured I'd better take what I can get, at this point.
There were a couple more pallets there; if you call them, you might be able to snag them.

I checked the agway next to H&H;. they had some softwood pellets for 365/ton. thats just insane. but they do have them.

 

[hotstovecoolmusic]

I ordered two skids from Pelletsales.com on 9/14.

I started calling them three weeks later for updates. Each time I called they said the trucker would call me to arrange delivery "any day now".
I called three times. The last call was Monday 10/21. They told me to call Cardinal Logistics to arrange delivery. I called Cardinal and they said; "we can deliver them tomorrow".
Wednesday(today) was supposed to rain so I arranged for a Thursday delivery.

My question is - did I call at exactly the right time, or have my pellets been sitting there and no one bothered to call me?

Maybe I'm just nitpicking.

Anyway, they're due in tomorrow. Stove installation scheduled for 10/28!

Cheers.

 

[hearthtools]

my mill SURE FIRE made by Foot Hill Forest Product.
has been 2 truck loads behind on me due to a break down at the mill.
The plant Manager told me they stopped taking all orders from Small Dealers and kept 4 of there largest accounts. (yippy im one of them)
Dansons is one of the others the make pellets for.

but good news I got a truck Yesterday
and a driver just called me and I will have a truck tomorrow.
tomorrow I will have 60 tons in stock but 50 of them are sold.
I hope I get my next truck next Friday. and then one 21 ton truck every Friday all winter long.
so far for this season I have received and sold 294 tons
I started on month late because my fork lift blew up and I had to shell out $12 grand for a used 1981 Toyota forklift

 

[abbdog]

Had no problem w/pelletsales. Didnt even call to check my order.Pellets were placed right at my shed.

 

[sinnian]

I didn't have any problems with Pelletsales.com either. I bought 6 tons of CleanFire for $261.40 delivered each, which was cheaper and a better product then anything I could find here to order last June. Most of what was available back then were Pennington's from the box stores, or the Athen's pellets for $250/ton plus delivery. Since there was not any specs on the Athens and they were untested, I went with Pelletsales.com and am sure glad I did. I have since seen the Athen's and they looked like bits and pieces, rather then pellets (i.e. small).

 

[tinkabranc]

I ordered from pelletsales this past April and was pleased with the transaction.
The driver put my pallets right where I needed them and not one bag was
damaged. Both their customer service rep and the truck driver were very
professional and very friendly. I plan to be a repeat customer.